


Angel of the Dark

by Drengade



Series: Stormy Waters [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Backstory, If Roosterteeth won't make her interesting I will.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 20:50:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drengade/pseuds/Drengade
Summary: Cinder has a very particular worldview, but why? What was her life like to drive her to where she is? Villains aren't born, they're made.I.e. If Roosterteeth won't give Cinder a backstory then I will.





	Angel of the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This backstory, like a lot of my headcanons, is based off a song by Aviators. In this case Angel of the Dark. This one doesn't fit the story as well as most of my others, but meh.
> 
> This story is considered canon to my other story 'To Find Untroubled Waters' but, as far as I know, is also canon compliant.

_Snow capped skies_  
Standing by while cities  
Perish in the reaches of the deep  
Bloodlines fall  
Lost it all, the pain of  
Severing the bond we had as three 

There was fire. Only fire. Fire and pain and choking smoke. Every time her eyes closed she was back, in the heat and the glow and the crackling and the screaming. A mob of stampeding people scrambled through the ruined streets, crumbling masonry and steel beams falling from the damaged buildings, unheeding of what, or who, they crushed beneath them. The screams of children and adults alike filled the air to join with the cacophony as they were crushed underfoot by the fleeing horde. The gutteral baying of the monsters at their heels echoed through the cavern, a clicking, skittering sound that would be unsettling at the best of times, but coupled with the phantasmagoria the city had become, it was sanity destroying. The crushing claustrophobia of seeing the cave roof far above, completely covered with the chittering creatures only made it worse. They weren't just behind you, they were all around you.

Every night, she watched once more as the struggling of the panicked, fleeing crowd ripped her mother from her father's grasp, the panicked woman knocked to the ground in the rush. Her last memory of her mother, before the frenzied mob blocked her line of sight, was a single white mandible descending past a visage of burning red eyes towards her mother's terrified face.

Once more she woke up, a sheen of cold sweat covering her body, but she didn't scream. No, the dream was too common for that, it was no longer a shock, it was the norm. She glanced out her window at the pale blanket that covered the ground, it was winter then too, that always made it worse. Faces in the memory seemed to be crisper in the snowy months.

She knew now that less than ten percent of the population had made it out, the rest sealed in the tunnels, possibly forever, either eaten alive or starving in the darkness. Her father... He couldn't cope. Family, wife, livelihood, all gone. The running... Just running. Eventually though, you cannot run forever. The money was gone and sadness doesn't tire, it will eventually catch you, no matter how hard you flee.

The sun was cresting the horizon, the amber light igniting the snow as only the Mistrali sun can do. She would have to start soon. Her room contained merely a mattress and a raggedy woollen blanket, but she forced herself to believe that that was enough. The less you have the less you will lose.

Her day began slowly in the same haze as always, she wiped down surfaces in the kitchen, she swept the floors and the outside path. She hadn't had time to sweep the stairs before she had to get started on breakfast.

She was almost done preparing the meal when footsteps on the stairs indicated someone else had woken up. The broken man who entered the kitchen was her father, his black hair messy and unkempt, his clothes hung off him like his jowls, the skin dragging his mouth into a permanent expression of sorrow. He hadn’t had the incentive to pull those muscles into a smile against the force of gravity in many years, four to be precise. She was seven now.

As always his eyes slid over her as if she wasn't even there, for him she was never there. Even serving him breakfast got little more than a noncommittal grunt. Something deep within him was broken, and she didn't know how to fix it.

Then down the stairs came lighter footsteps. As the woman they belonged to entered the room her breath caught as it always did. Too familiar, too painful, a knife dug into an old wound and twisted. Twisted hard. The long red hair and those amber eyes, her mother's eyes. The resemblance was too close and it hurt. However, superficial similarities aside there was a rottenness in this woman, a dark seeping malaise that lingered thick in the halls of the house.

She couldn't blame her father, a wound numbed is a wound not hurting, but a numbed wound is not immune to infection, nor is the body immune to toxins in the anaesthetic.

“Why are the stairs not clean?! You ungrateful whelp. You should be ashamed.”

But she wasn't. Her emotions were in tumult almost constantly, but shame never came into it. Anger, fear and hatred. Those constituted most of her emotions. The few small bastions of love she had left after the incident had been slowly disposed of when she wasn't around, stripping her room of all but the barest necessities. All that was left really was her father, and that light had dimmed long ago.

She hated that woman, the predatory fiend who had snuck into a shattered nest and laid a Cuckoo. Too familiar of a face and intoxicated grief had pulled her father to the woman's side like an insect to a flytrap. Resulting in the mistake who was descending the stairs. Oh, she wasn't calling the thing a mistake, it's mother did. It was the woman's 'happy little mistake’ and it was the bane of her life.

The woman still somewhat feared her father may care for her deep down, so the woman never went too far, fearing repercussions, but it was a demon child 'who could do no wrong’. She knew where most of her belongings that were once lights in her lonely life had gone, they had gone to it, and then quickly left its possession as it destroyed them.

It evidently was starting early today as it quickly grabbed a fork from the table and began stabbing her with the implement. She fended it off with a hand on it's head, the black and crimson hair under her hand felt like any normal hair, but she hated that unusual colour. This however, was the day her heart broke.

“Cinder, stop attacking your sister, no breakfast for you.”

Her heart stopped in her chest, she turned towards the voice and saw her father, his eyes totally devoid of feeling, a hollow husk, despite indifference, he'd never taken its side in so obvious a situation. Finally the last light had blinked out and Cinder's spirit spiralled down. The woman smirked, her victory total. She controlled everything now. The final familial bond Cinder had, though it was tattered and frayed, had been a lifeline she held on to in the darkest of nights, and now it had snapped.

From then on, Cinder’s life went from bad to worse, a festering hatred lay over the house. The woman, her aunt, now fearing no repercussions from Cinder’s father, made her hate for the girl very clear. Every chore, every beating just rammed it home.

To rub salt deeper into the wound, Cinder’s little cousin was called Ember, her mother's name. That name had gone from loved to despised, and her aunt merely fanned the flames.

Embers burn and can grow to a flame, Cinder's aunt freely wafted enough hatred at Ember to incite a black inferno. However, cinders can hold heat under the skin, never showing it, but they will ignite any available fuel.  
Cinder held a massive resentment, but also a massive fear. She was petrified of repercussions should she lash out and so she trembled in silence through the nightmare riddled nights.

Two years passed, two years of hell. Her father lost all that made him her father, whenever his eyes slid over her they saw nothing. The only exceptions were when he would fly into a rage, the vitriol that spewed from him shook Cinder to her core, blaming her for her mother's death, lambasting her attempts at keeping up with the massive lists of chores. However, Cinder barely cried, that would be letting go of the emotions, no she held onto them in the hope that one day she could bring them to bear. But when her father hit her for the first time, a full on punch that laid her on her back, she couldn't contain her tears.

Nine years old, cold and scared, shivering in her blank room that had lost even the mattress and ratty blanket that had once been her only possessions, she had finally had enough. It had taken many days for her to pluck up the courage.

She climbed out her window and hung from the gutter, before dropping two metres into a snowdrift. The cold seeped through her thin clothes and she was tempted just to lie there and let herself freeze, but she was angry, and a cold death would not make them suffer.

She picked herself from the snow and began the long walk to the village, her teeth chattering in the biting wind. She stumbled many times, rocks on the path leaving sprays of blood across the snow from her hands and knees, but she still walked on. She eventually reached the cluster of four rickety buildings that constituted the village, too small even to have a name, and knocked on the door of the patrolman's outpost, the closest thing to law enforcement out here.

But the men didn't listen to her, panicking about a freezing child covered in grazes knocking on their door in the middle of the night, they dismissed her recollections of what went on in her house as mere fantasy. They knew her father and aunt, they were a lovely couple, visited the village quite often to buy food.

And so they called the demons, and she was pulled back to hell.

Cinder was back in the choking house, and it was worse than before, as if they wanted revenge from her. Cinder had learned an important lesson. Never rely on anyone, they will betray you. That goes double for authorities too caught up with their own image to pull their head out their arses and do their jobs.

The chores became slightly worse, but it was the beatings that almost broke her, her father had lost his inhibitions. She lay on the cold floor in her room, bruises aching against the rough wooden floor.

If revenge wasn’t possible, if she was destined to cower under the control of these demons, then she refused. If she couldn't cause them harm, then she could deny them comfort.

She had cowered under them for years, so she would make a stand and hang the consequences.

She wouldn't live under them anymore, even if that was the only way she could live.

She was powerless here, so she would claim the only power she could have.

If she could only live under them, then she wouldn't live at all.

After years without anything, she would grasp the only thing everyone has.

The ability to end it all.

_Here in a sanctum long abandoned_  
Unto the tinder falls a spark  
I have a holy call to answer  
To be an angel of the dark  
So I will pray for death to take you  
With my own cold and weary hands  
And you'll arise reborn of ashes  
Before the fire fades again 

_Close your eyes_  
Fire must die, and I will  
Reap your embered spirit to survive  
Let us rest  
Never test the darkness  
Keeping our own winter dream alive 

Cinder was determined and was oddly calm, having come to such a decision you would expect some degree of extreme emotion, but no. She was scared to an extent, but she didn't really have anything to lose.  
She once again dropped from the window into the snowdrift. But she wasn't waiting in the drift, she couldn't count on the cold to take her. She had to make it definite.

Through the murky fog, that had swept in from the nearby mountains, cinder stumbled into the forest.  
Her lurching gait in the deep cold took her deep into the trees until she came to the wreckage of a house. It was impossible to tell how long it had lain derelict.

She sat down in the lee of a crumbing wall and thought back on all that had happened to her. All her despair, anger and hatred, everything.

She would call them here.

The growling in the dark announced their arrival. As the monster stepped into the ruins of the house she rose and stepped forward She looked deep into the red glow within that white mask. Ivory jaws gleaming in the moonlight opened in front of her and the beast released a howl at Cinder. Yet Cinder, a waif before a demon, didn't budge, and stood there, glaring balefully at the beast.

“Go on Monster. I'm waiting.”

The Grimm snarled briefly at her, cocking it's head in confusion, but its pause was only momentary. A massive paw swung at cinder and struck her in her side. 

She felt bones crack.

The feeling wasn’t new, but it was rarely this intense. The claws had left wounds along her flank, but besides a momentary gasp of shock she gave no indication of pain. This was her decision, why should she protest?  
With a gargle of fluid in her throat, she must be hurt internally, Cinder once more addressed the Grimm.

“Shameful, the bane of mankind only scratches an unmoving target. Is that really the best you can do? Go on. End it.”

The beast let out a roar and dived at her, its slavering jaws open wide as she stared down its gullet. Cinder closed her eyes and waited for them to close around her skull.

But the moment never came.

Cinder opened her eyes, confused at why she wasn't dead, only to find the Grimm pinned to a tree by a large grey sword.

A scruffy man in a grey coat and a red cloak darted forward and grabbed the blade, swinging it up through the Grimm’s skull.

Cinder’s vision swum briefly as she slid into unconsciousness.

When she awoke, she thought she was in a nightmare. She was back in that house, on the bed in the spare room, which was unusual, but it was definitely that house, she'd cleaned it enough to know.

She heard an unfamiliar voice from the next room.

“She should be fine, but you need to be more careful in the future, I had to activate her aura to heal her injuries. In the future you may notice her being stronger than most people and shrugging stuff off that would normally hurt someone. There is also the possibility that she'll develop some sort of ability later.”

No.

If anything could be said of the next few months, it would be that they were hell on earth. Cinder could now protect herself better from beatings with this 'aura’ but all that meant was that they were more numerous and vicious. She was stronger, but that just meant more and harder chores.

Now overriding her fear, came anger, white hot and searing. Anger at her so-called family. Anger at the patrolmen, too blind to see abuse right before their eyes. And anger at the huntsman, self righteous enough that he believed he could decide for her that she was to live.

She cursed her family, with vicious fervour, she would burn them one day, burn all the rot away.

Far away, in a black castle in a black land, a black hearted woman sat in a black throne. Her influence was growing, her beasts growing bolder, striking harder, pushing further and striking fear into the hearts of men.

But this woman was perplexed, she had felt confusion streaming down her link to her monsters the day before. She had called her seer to her, an eerie betentacled ball, and observed through it what one of her many creatures saw.

It saw contempt, resignation and fire. It saw a child, barely out of the crib, matching glares with a demon and goading it on. It didn't hear complaints, it didn't see fear, but it saw damage. It saw a child cracked and warping, it saw resentment and pliability. It saw someone she could use.

That the huntsman saved her may end up being a good thing after all.

She sent off the seer, to bring one of her servants to her, this would be his last chance to absolve himself of his recent constant failures.

When the creature returned, dragging the man in with its tentacles, she looked at the feeble person and thought about how disappointing he had been recently.

His original skill had quickly earned her graces, he was a skilled assassin, but over recent years his age had begun to catch up with him.

Many ruined operations, multiple failed assassinations. She was at the end of her patience.

“Mauvein, I have a task for you.”

She displayed Cinder in the seer.

“You are to seek out this girl in northwest Haven, she lives near a tiny unnamed village fifty miles from the town of Gravehazel. It is highly likely that her home situation is... Violent. You are to observe her, and if this does turn out to be the case, 'rescue’ her from it. If not, orchestrate an accident such that it kills her family and then convince her to come with you. Bring her here. We must have her trust us, so you cannot be violent.”

“As you command, my queen.”

It seemed that Cinder’s family had come to a conclusion, if Cinder wanted to die than she could, but slowly, on their terms. She hadn’t eaten for days. Her wrists were chained to the wall, metal bars having been screwed into the wood to keep her there. Her fingers were bent and broken and her left eye was swollen shut. Her half sister had been particularly vicious today. Her aura was slowly returning overnight, like usual, but in her deliriousness she couldn't focus on it. Her wounds from the Grimm were still not fully healed, the ache in her side a constant reminder of her failure.

In her unstable condition her emotions began to bleed. Her uncontrolled and fluctuating aura crashed through anger and hate, grinding and flaring and smouldering.

Until it ignited.

The wooden floor before her lit up in a blaze, a delirious grin stole across her face as the red heat grew larger. A gurgling laugh left her damaged throat as the flames leapt higher and blazed more fiercely. Yet these flames didn't touch her, they remained at a safe distance and instead shot out to explore the hallways. 

Door and window, hatch and gate. It sought out exits and blocked them, then the tendrils extended to the bedrooms. The screaming cacophony that reached Cinder split her cheeks in an insane grin. She would burn the Cuckoo and the Mistake slowly. She would survive longer than they. Let them feel pain this time. But her father... She couldn't burn him herself but... He probably would perish in the conflagration too.

Mauvein was not happy. A glorified kidnap mission? And of a child no less? Was this really all his skill was worth? Even better, he'd arrived at his destination only to find it a collapsed and blackened ruin. It was highly likely the target was already dead. All the same, he filtered through the wreckage just in case.

To his great surprise, he found her, unharmed, unsure whether to praise his good fortune or lament his extended task, Mauvein extracted the girl.

Cinder’s wounds had mostly healed while she was passed out, but she was still very weak. Mauvein trickled water and soup down her throat on the journey back, but he didn't make much effort to actually help.  
Cinder awoke a long distance away from her home, in the company of an unknown man, with her wrists and ankles bound. Understandably, she was worried and angry, but in her now lucid state she couldn't start the fire again. Along the remaining journey she constantly tried to escape. Trying to cut her bonds with rocks, biting them, biting Mauvein, but nothing worked.

Eventually they entered the black land, and Cinder’s rising fear skyrocketed. The sable citadel that hoved into view a few days later did nothing to ease this feeling.

_Here in a sanctum long abandoned_  
Unto the tinder falls a spark  
I have a holy call to answer  
To be an angel of the dark  
So I will pray for death to take you  
With my own cold and weary hands  
And you'll arise reborn of ashes  
Before the fire fades again 

The thunderous boom as the doors to the citadel closed behind Cinder sounded like a death knell. She was dragged through the corridors by the rope around her wrists, her apprehension reached its peak as they entered a large chamber and she was thrown to the floor.

“Here is your child my queen.”

“I see. And why is she bound?”

“She was... troublesome, my lady.”

“Release her."

Cinder looked up to see an alabaster white face, covered with lines of midnight. The Queen addressed her.

Mauvein roughly cut Cinder’s bonds. Close up there was no doubt in the woman's mind that Cinder had been abused, it was plain as day.

“This world is rotten isn't it little girl? I know what you've been through, how does it feel being powerless? Living in fear? Constantly afraid of what atrocity will be lain upon you next?"

Cinder was shaking

"Tell me little girl, do you want to be afraid? Do you want to tremble before others? What do you want?"

Cinder hesitated and looked at the ground, before:

"I, I want power, I, I don't want to hide."

"Little girl, you have to sound like you mean it."

Cinder looked up at the woman, a determination lighting up in eyes that had thought all hope was lost.

"I want to be strong. I want to be feared. I want to be powerful."

"Good"

The woman stood and glared at Mauvein, a quick gesture of her right hand caused a myriad of shadowy black appendages to rise up from the ground around him, these tendrils grabbed him and held him tighter and more surely than Cinder’s bonds had held her.

"This one has repeatedly failed me lately. You want to be powerful? You want to be feared? Then act like someone who should be feared."

The woman handed Cinder a knife, it was curved and sharp, candlelight flickered over its edge and it seemed to hold an immense weight, as if a great decision rested upon it.

"Kill him. Prove you are stronger than him. Prove you are more powerful than him. Prove he should fear you."

Cinder took the knife, oversized in her small hands, and turned to Mauvein. He had been a relatively minor influence in her life all told, especially when compared to others. But a slight is a slight, no matter the magnitude.

Taking careful aim, heedless of the panicked and staring white eyes or the obvious muted protests coming from behind the shadowy gag, Cinder slowly plunged the knife into Mauvein's chest.

Cinder had made her choice; no longer, and never again, would she be powerless. She would succeed and fight for her power, for the powerful control the powerless. What the powerful say is law. Cinder was done being powerless and afraid, time to make others afraid of her.

**Author's Note:**

> So there we go.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated.


End file.
